1989-90 Which Forwards had the Best Season?

[Dingo]

VOTE FOR TOP THREE!!

On to the next. 88-89 was pretty easy. I find this one a LOT harder. The emergence of Brett Hull. Messier's emergence as The Captain. A broken, yet great year by Mario. Another great one by Yzerman while playing with nothing, and another great LA year for Wayne, this time unopposed by a healthy Mario.

Most of us were around for this, I think. Use memory as much as stats, or do whatever you want, but please select the top 3 forward seasons of 1989-90.

Click to read more...

 

[Dingo]

This was hard for me between Messier and Yzerman. Messier had the hype and the 'look at what Edmonton is doing withOUT Gretzky' thing. This is where his legend started. I would say he still had slightly more to work with than Yzerman, who also had a big edge in goals and one in even strength points, too. I know most will say Messier, but I think its a toss up. I went with Moose because of the physical game.

I took Mario because he still had the best points per game.

Brett was awesome, but I figure he had the best linemate of the bunch, and was still a good bit behind except in goals, and he didnt flat out dominate there, as Yzerman did very well again.

If I change my vote it will be to put Yzerman in third over Messier. I think Kurri is a better linemate than anything Yzerman had.

 

[Dingo]

Please select 3 players.

 

[JackSlater]

I voted for Gretzky, Yzerman, and Messier and I would rank them in that order, at least right now, but it's reasonably close. Lemieux was obviously the best player in the NHL that year but he was hurt and ended up missing too many games to have had the best season. Gretzky wasn't at his best either but he did just enough for me. I think that Yzerman was better than Messier and had less to work with, but Messier was still excellent that season. Hull has a great argument too but I don't really think he was yet better than Yzerman offensively, and I'm quite confident that Yzerman was better defensively and more generally involved. As much as Oates is sometimes given too much credit for Hull's success, and yes Hull was great on his own, none of the other top scorers in the poll had someone that good offensively to help out.

I think that almost any combination of Gretzky/Yzerman/Messier can be justified, and Hull could make it on the bottom of that group too.

 

[TheStatican]

1989-90 is about the closest parallel you'll find to this past season. It's actually kind of scary how closely the two seasons resemble each other in terms of player performance and the final award winners
MVP(2nd place scorer in both cases) and the Ross winner;
Messier & Gretzky = MacKinnon & Kucherov
The games best player but injury cost them award(s);
Lemieux = McDavid
The games best goal scorer;
Hull = Matthews
Great seasons yet both still end up missing out on any awards;
Yzerman = Panarin

 

[Dingo]

Kucherov had the best points per game last year, i think?

Its not a bad take, but it isnt dead accurate, either. Yzerman is all but totally equal to Messier in points and per game, and well ahead in goals. Panarin does not have that on MacKinnon last year at all.

Hull Matthews is very good.

I think Yzerman is getting the short end in this comparison, and Kucherov.

not bad, though. Nice to see big depth at the top in both cases.

 

[TheStatican]

Well... I didn't say that they were exactly parallel, just really close. But your right, Yzerman is getting the short end of the stick in the above comparison. Although at the time I recall that Yzerman's season wasn't really viewed as being at the same level as Messier's despite the highly comparable final totals.

 

[Dingo]

I agree that the media was pushing Messier way more than Yzerman. I remember it that way as well.

I do think that's the result of the Oilers vs Dead Wings, and that Messier emerged out of the absence of the guy that drove the most media then, and had for a decade.

 

[Staniowski]

Same as the previous season...Lemieux #1 followed by Gretzky and Messier.

I think Gretzky and Messier are close, with Messier ahead in some situations.

 

[The Panther]

Edmonton is doing withOUT Gretzky' thing. This is where his legend started.

I mean... he'd won the Conn Smythe six years earlier, and had four 25+ point playoffs already...

I took Mario because he still had the best points per game.

He did, but a big dip from the year prior (a lot of top players' totals were down a bit this season), and frankly poor results at even strength. One point for Messier here is that all his numbers (points, goals, plus/minus, consistent-scoring) were up from 1989, despite the Oilers having their lowest-scoring season in nine years.

If I change my vote it will be to put Yzerman in third over Messier. I think Kurri is a better linemate than anything Yzerman had.

Just to note that Kurri and Messier weren't linemates. Messier played with Anderson & Simpson (still good linemates!) and Kurri with Tikkanen and Lamb.

1989-90 is about the closest parallel you'll find to this past season. It's actually kind of scary how closely the two seasons resemble each other in terms of player performance and the final award winners

That's really interesting!

I agree that the media was pushing Messier way more than Yzerman. I remember it that way as well.

I do think that's the result of the Oilers vs Dead Wings, and that Messier emerged out of the absence of the guy that drove the most media then, and had for a decade.

You have to look at the contemporary team context. So, you mention "Dead Wings", but that era had ended in 1986-87. In 1987 and in 1988, the Red Wings were resurgent (in '88 they were the fifth-best team in the NHL). Then, in 1989 and especially 1990, they were big disappointments. These are the Red Wings' point totals from 1988 to 1990:
93
80
70
In 1989-90, they finished fifth in their (not great) division and missed the playoffs! In this context, you can kind of see why some people were not thinking that Yzerman's scoring heroics were necessarily helping the team a lot.

Obviously, Yzerman was amazing in 1989 and 1990 -- certainly one of the top three or four forwards (if not players) in the NHL -- but one stat that always stands out to me in those two seasons is the huge number of goals-against when he was on the ice. He missed some time in 1988, but if I project his numbers that season (and all seasons below) to 80 games played, this is the number of goals scored against Detroit when Yzerman was on the ice:
88 - 1987
94 - 1988
152 - 1989
168 - 1990
141 - 1991
103 - 1992
As always, there's context here, including (a) the Wings were defensively much worse in '89 and especially '90 than in '87 or '88, and (b) Demers gave Yzerman more ice-time and more freedom to attack starting in 1988-89, but still it's not a good look.

 

[Dingo]

I mean... he'd won the Conn Smythe six years earlier, and had four 25+ point playoffs already...

He did, but a big dip from the year prior (a lot of top players' totals were down a bit this season), and frankly poor results at even strength. One point for Messier here is that all his numbers (points, goals, plus/minus, consistent-scoring) were up from 1989, despite the Oilers having their lowest-scoring season in nine years.

Just to note that Kurri and Messier weren't linemates. Messier played with Anderson & Simpson (still good linemates!) and Kurri with Tikkanen and Lamb.

That's really interesting!

You have to look at the contemporary team context. So, you mention "Dead Wings", but that era had ended in 1986-87. In 1987 and in 1988, the Red Wings were resurgent (in '88 they were the fifth-best team in the NHL). Then, in 1989 and especially 1990, they were big disappointments. These are the Red Wings' point totals from 1988 to 1990:
93
80
70
In 1989-90, they finished fifth in their (not great) division and missed the playoffs! In this context, you can kind of see why some people were not thinking that Yzerman's scoring heroics were necessarily helping the team a lot.

Obviously, Yzerman was amazing in 1989 and 1990 -- certainly one of the top three or four forwards (if not players) in the NHL -- but one stat that always stands out to me in those two seasons is the huge number of goals-against when he was on the ice. He missed some time in 1988, but if I project his numbers that season (and all seasons below) to 80 games played, this is the number of goals scored against Detroit when Yzerman was on the ice:
88 - 1987
94 - 1988
152 - 1989
168 - 1990
141 - 1991
103 - 1992
As always, there's context here, including (a) the Wings were defensively much worse in '89 and especially '90 than in '87 or '88, and (b) Demers gave Yzerman more ice-time and more freedom to attack starting in 1988-89, but still it's not a good look.

Well, maybe I phrased it wrong, or something. Growing up in BC, not even Alberta, the Edmonton Oilers were essentially Gods. Gods in the media, Gods in school, their hockey cards were immediately more valuable than nearly anyone else. Wayne was actually God, and then Messier was like some resurrection when all was thought to be lost. I mean, I know people who cried when Wayne was traded. It hit everyone hard. That and Ben Johnson being stripped of Gold due to steroids. I would be surprised to hear that it wasn't this way all across Canada, or at the very least western Canada, with the Oilers and Wayne being still HEAVILY talked about even in Toronto and Montreal. I mean, hockey exploded in popularity in the USA the moment Wayne went to LA. The Oilers were IT, and Wayne was the absolutely unquestioned King of Hockey.

And the other team we are talking about is the 80s Red Wings.


I don't think Yzerman's goals on ice for, or the Wings having had a decent season two years prior played as big a role as that.

Now, I think there is an argument for Messier..... and, I VOTED for him... but he definitely had the buzz behind him, too.

 

[The Panther]

I'll do the same month-by-month breakdown here that I did for the 1988-89 season. But this time, there aren't really three or four clear scoring leaders, so I'll just do the top five or six scorers per month (ranked by points), with some additional players mentioned here-and-there where it's interesting:

October 1989
26 Gretzky (13GP: 9G + 17A; -1)
24 Nieuwendyk (13GP: 11G + 13A; +13)
22 Yzerman (12GP: 8G + 14A; -1)
21 Nicholls (13GP: 10G + 11A; +2)
21 Makarov (13GP: 3G + 18A; +15)
20 Lemieux (12GP: 5G + 15A; -7)
(Messier was in a four-way tie for seventh with 19 points in 12 games.)
November 1989
27 Lemieux (13GP: 8G + 19A; 0)
26 Gretzky (12GP: 3G + 23A; 0)
24 Messier (15GP: 10G + 14A; -1)
24 Oates (13GP: 7G + 17A; +8)
22 Gartner (14GP: 10G + 12A; +2
(Nicholls was in a three-way tie for seventh; Yzerman -- believe ir or not -- was 63rd in scoring this month with 11 points in 13 games. What happened there...?)
December 1989
29 Lemieux (13GP: 12G + 17A; +2)
28 Gretzky (13GP: 7G + 21A; +10)
26 Robitaille (13GP: 13G + 13A; +7)
25 Nicholls (13GP: 9G + 16A; +5)
24 Muller (16GP: 13G + 11A; +5)
(Yzerman was in a four-way tie for sixth with a healthy 23 points in 14 games, while Messier was in a three-way tie for 22nd with 18 points in 13 games.)
January 1990
27 Lemieux (13GP: 11G + 16A; -10)
26 Yzerman (12GP: 12G + 14A; -1)
26 Messier (13GP: 8G + 18A; +7)
24 Hawerchuk (15GP: 11G + 13A; 0)
23 Hull (13GP: 14G + 9A; -5)
(Gretzky was 7th with 21 points in 13 games -- he went into a huge slump in late January, probably due to his buddy Nicholls being traded to the Rangers.)
February 1990
28 Coffey (14GP: 6G + 22A; -5)
24 Cullen (14GP: 9G + 15A; -5)
24 Gretzky (13GP: 8G + 16A; +1)
24 Yzerman (13GP: 12G + 12A; -3)
22 Messier (13GP: 4G + 18A; +2)
(Lemieux played only two periods vs. NYR on Valentine's Day and then couldn't continue. He was out until the final game of the season. Brett Hull and...(ahem) Gerard Gallant just missed the list here, each scoring 21 points this month. Hull had 15 goals in 13 games.)
March 1990
27 Verbeek (15GP: 11G + 16A; +4)
24 Bellows (14GP: 15G + 9A; +5)
22 Turgeon (13GP: 8G + 14A; 0)
21 Cullen (15GP: 6G + 15A; -7)
21 Francis (15GP: 6G + 15A; +4)
(Do not adjust your screens... the above list is correct. Oh, and Yzerman and Messier were in a seven-way tie for sixth, with 20 points... players matching them in scoring included Kelly Kisio and Brent Sutter.... Gretzky got injured and played only 7 games this month. Lemieux was out the whole month until the final game of the season, on March 31st.)

Nobody played more than 1 game in April 1990.

(I wonder -- if stat-checking wasn't available -- how many people here would have guessed that Pat Verbeen was one of the NHL monthly scoring leaders in 1989-90..?)

Overall scoring:
142 points (73GP) Gretzky
129 points (79 GP) Messier
127 points (79GP) Yzerman
123 points (59 GP) Lemieux
113 points (80 GP) Hull
112 points (79 GP) Nicholls

Goals
72 Hull (18.7%)
62 Yzerman (18.7%)
55 Bellows (18.3%)
55 Neely (20.3%)
54 Lafontaine (18.9%)

Assists
102 Gretzky
84 Messier
79 Oates
78 Lemieux
74 Coffey

Even-Strength points
96 Gretzky
79 Yzerman
71 Lemieux
71 Messier
69 Hull
69 Richer

Even-Strength goals
45 Hull
42 Richer
39 Lafontaine
39 Yzerman
36 Leeman
34 Roberts

Power-Play points
54 MacInnis
52 Nicholls
49 Lemieux
48 Coffey
47 Bourque
47 Messier

Power-play goals
27 Hull
25 Neely
21 Bellows
21 Gartner
20 Robitaille

Short-handed points
11 Messier
11 Yzerman
10 Kurri
10 MacTavish

 

[Dingo]

six voters who have only voted for one player now....

 

[bobholly39]

Gretzky, Messier, Yzerman.

It's easy to exclude Mario Lemieux from the top 3 for "best season". Simply put - he was nowhere near 100% and didn't play all the games. He was the best player on a per game basis - and had he been fully healthy I think he would have challenged his totals from 1989 (199 points, 84 goal) - so he is the best player, but probably had the 4th best season.

Yzerman is clearly third.

Gretzky #1, and Messier #2 for me. This is probably Messier's best season. I have no problem with Messier winning the hart here (Bourque would have been ok too) - it's 1992 I find gets vaslty overrated for him.

 

[Michael Farkas]

six voters who have only voted for one player now....

The poll's title is: "Best 1989-90" and the thread title doesn't say "Top 3 forwards of..." or "Who were the best three..."

Yes, there's a note in the message, but you see the message third after those other two pieces of information and those two pieces of information are enough to start thinking about the question and, thus, potentially ignoring further instruction.

It's a classic case of bad UI leading to a bad UX leading to bad data...

 

[Video Nasty]

Went with Gretzky, Lemieux, and Hull (no particular order).

A boring, routine, worst year since his rookie season campaign is still better than 99% of the league.

While I normally ding anyone for significant missed time, Lemieux did about as much as anyone else while playing a quarter less.

Hull scored 70.

 

[MadLuke]

In 89-90 when Mario played the Penguins went 27-28-4, scoring 4.18 goal per games.
When he did not play they went 5-12-4, scoring 3.35 goal per games.

Is it enough in 60 games to push him above one of Gretzky-Messier-Hull ? Lemieux could have added 10-12 wins to his team even missing that many games.

Maybe Hull, but he scored 70 goals.

 

[WalterLundy]

Went with Gretzky, Lemieux, and Hull (no particular order).

A boring, routine, worst year since his rookie season campaign is still better than 99% of the league.

While I normally ding anyone for significant missed time, Lemieux did about as much as anyone else while playing a quarter less.

Hull scored 70.

Gretzky was averaging 2.09 points per game and leading the scoring race at the time of the Bernie Nicholls trade (Jan 20). Would have cleared 150 points easily if that doesn’t happen. He and Nicholls were 1st and 3rd respectively in league scoring at that time. Gretzky was the best player that season. Got to see him on Halloween that year at the civic arena where he had a hat trick and 6 point night. If I’m picking 3 players I agree I’d go Gretzky, Lemieux and Hull that year.

 

[VanIslander]

Notice how Bourque's losing the Hart trophy by a mere 2 votes is excluded from the thread topic, as is Roy's Vezina.

It was my 3rd year of college. Gretz, Messier, Mario, Bourque, Roy.... were rightfully headliners.

You should be jealous. Hockey today isn't as great.

So,... to reduce it all to the poll q of forwards: 99, 66 & 11.

 

[MadLuke]

is excluded from this, as Roy's Vezina.

From the best seasons by a forward ? Yes we all noticed.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Notice how Bourque's losing the Hart trophy by a mere 2 votes is excluded from the thread topic

About forwards? Yeah, that makes sense to me. At this point in Bourque's career, I think even his spot duty at LW had dried up...

 

[VanIslander]

From the best seasons by a forward ? Yes we all noticed.

Think about a season you remember but do NOT think about how great players were at this and that position, only the other!

I can do the blindfold exercise, but i reserve the right to speak to its limits.

My final answer: 99, 66, 11.

Gem after gem:

 

[MadLuke]

Think about a season you remember but do NOT think about how great players were at this and that position, only the other!

As a Montreal fans, who were the best player in the league not at the forward position was relatively common talk the last 45 years

 

[Dingo]

Think about a season you remember but do NOT think about how great players were at this and that position, only the other!

I can do the blindfold exercise, but i reserve the right to speak to its limits.

My final answer: 99, 66, 11.

Gem after gem:

I don't see what he problem is.

If I asked you who the best goalie in 1976 was and you lamented that I didnt allow Kareem Abdul Jabbar into the poll option I would be no more confused.

Weird take, as is the assumption that I wasnt around back then and need to be 'jealous'

I'm trying to see what the board thinks of a year by year look into Best Forward, seeing as we already have Best Defenseman and Best Goalie (since 1980, when I was also around, be jealous)

 

[JackSlater]

I don't see what he problem is.

If I asked you who the best goalie in 1976 was and you lamented that I didnt allow Kareem Abdul Jabbar into the poll option I would be no more confused.

Weird take, as is the assumption that I wasnt around back then and need to be 'jealous'

I'm trying to see what the board thinks of a year by year look into Best Forward, seeing as we already have Best Defenseman and Best Goalie (since 1980, when I was also around, be jealous)

He's pretending that he knew all along that the poll was forwards only.

I really don't see a case for Lemieux here. Lemieux missed a quarter of the season, and when he played it wasn't even peak Lemieux as he was battling injuries. It isn't like 1993 where he still managed to blow everyone away despite the games missed and it isn't as if Pittsburgh didn't have some strong offensive players on the ice when Lemieux did play. It is impressive that Lemieux could miss a quarter of the season, play hurt, and still finish fourth in scoring - it's more impressive than what anyone else did that year. It's not a better season than those of players who outscored him and actually played ~20 more games. Missing games is a negative when comparing seasons.